


A Meal of One's Memories

by extremelyperturbed



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Fluff, Food, Gen, Nostalgia, POV Third Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-25
Updated: 2016-08-25
Packaged: 2018-08-10 22:54:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7864687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/extremelyperturbed/pseuds/extremelyperturbed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I actually posted this request at http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/21013.html?thread=53564181#t53564181  but nobody filled it so I've decided to do it.  </p><p>A book writer wants to know what their impressions of food during that time was. The writer thinks there will be less nostalgia and forgetfulness about what things actually tasted like back then.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Meal of One's Memories

As he and Sam were jogging, Steve raised an eyebrow. "She wants to interview me about food during the Depression?" 

Sam shrugged. "Seems harmless enough. I've read most of her books and she's not in the least bit petty or sloppy with the facts. She wants the opinion and taste buds of a person whose memories of the food during that era haven't faded or become tainted by nostalgia. Get this, she even wants to cook you a few dishes using recipes from that era and see what your reaction is."

"As long as it's strictly about food back then."

"Why don't you bring Bucky with you?"

"I don't know . . ."

"You seem keen on wanting him to remember. Maybe she could jog some of the more benign memories . . ."

"I'll ask him."

***

"Hello, Mr. Rogers, I'm Mary Dawn, I'm glad you're both here," said the author after she opened the door. She was holding the interview at the kitchen her caterer friend used for jobs. Fortunately, her friend was on vacation so there would be no chance the interview would be interrupted by a rush job. 

"We're glad to help, and call me Steve," said Steve with what she perceived as a small, polite smile. He and his friend were dressed in a style she mentally termed "neat casual," a button down shirt, jeans and leather jacket. 

She was surprised to see James Buchanan Barnes. She had been warned that while Steve was sure to come, he might not. "I'm glad you could make it, Mr. Barnes."

"Call me Bucky," he said.

Mary said, "I've actually made some of the dishes I've seen in cookbooks and heard about online. I'd like your opinions about them later on after I've asked some fairly basic questions."

"Go on," said Steve. 

After they sat down on the fold-out chairs, she said, "You both lived in Brooklyn during the 1930s. I am assuming neither of you had relatives or close friends who had farms in upstate New York."

"That's right," said Steve.

"People in rural areas had the option of raising chickens and eggs and going hunting," she said. "I'm assuming that this was not an option for either of you."

"No, but we had trees in the backyard," said Bucky. 

Steve blinked in surprise but looked pleased. 

"What kind of trees . . ." Mary said. 

"One of them was an apple tree. I remember mom would make pies and baked apples. Even when I moved out of the house, she'd often come by with a bag of apples, saying that they'd go to waste otherwise." Bucky turned to Steve. "You seemed to really like them."

"I did," said Steve. "I don't remember what kind they were but they were mostly red with bits of green on the skin. When you'd bite into them, they were so juicy."

"What's the thing that strikes you about the difference between food then and now?" she said.

Steve turned to Bucky. "Do you want to answer first or should I?"

"You go first," said Bucky.

Steve thought for a little bit then he said, "When I first woke up in the 21st century, I was really shocked out of my mind. The first few weeks I didn't have much of an appetite and when I did eat, I did it on auto-pilot. It's only later that I realized how much things had really changed."

"How so?" said Mary. 

"There weren't any Wakandan restaurants or Brazilian barbecues back then in my neighborhood. Now, you can basically eat around the world just by hopping on the subway and you don't have to be as rich as Tony to do it. I don't have to constantly hustle for my next meal. There are a lot of fruits now that I didn't even know existed like lychee and jack fruit. While there are still problems with making sure everybody gets nutritious food, it isn't as bad as it used to be. That's something I think of as being an improvement. Bananas taste terrible though."

"There's a reason for that," said Mary. "The variety that you knew was the Gros Michel, a sweeter and creamier version than the one now. It was replaced by the Cavendish because the Gros Michel was getting wiped out by a fungus in the 1950s. Unfortunately, now the Cavendish variety is under attack."

"I thought it was my imagination."

Mary found this bit of news strangely cheering. While she was not cheering the Cavendish being threatened, she did see that he not only remembered the past clearly but seemed to have a discerning palate. "It would be nice if when they finally do create or choose a virus resistant strain, they pay attention to taste for once. And you, Bucky?"

"I agree."

"I meant what do you think about how food has changed from back then."

Bucky seemed to hesitate, then sniffed and said, "What's that smell?"

"There are a few dishes back there,"Mary said. "Want to take a look?"

Bucky shrugged. "Sure."

Once they were standing besides her near the range, Mary raised the lid of one of the pots and some steam came out. "Baked beans from scratch."

Bucky sniffed and smiled. "Hey, Steve, didn't you use to make this?"

Steve nodded. "Yeah, I did."

"Want a taste? It's from a cookbook from that era," said Mary.

"Yeah," said Bucky.

"I'd love some," said Steve.

She put a large spoonful each unto two plates and handed them some silverware. "I've got other dishes so I don't want to fill you up on this."

Bucky nodded after eating his sample. "It's good."

"I like this. Mine had a little more brown sugar," said Steve.

"I'd often come home from work and Steve would have a nice pot of baked beans or soup on the range ready for dinner," said Bucky. 

"So, Steve did most of the cooking?" said Mary.

Steve said, "I wasn't always like this. Often, I wouldn't be strong enough to go outside and work but if I was still well enough to get out of bed, I'd make sure he had one less thing to do when he got back from a shift. I used to do the same for my mom before she got sick and passed away. She'd come back from long hours at the hospital and I'd make sure she didn't have to worry about doing anything other than sitting down to a hot meal. I can't say that I was any good as a cook, though."

"What? You were a great cook," said Bucky.

Steve rolled his eyes. "Bucky, we're supposed to tell her the truth."

"Who's lying? Tell her about that salad thing."

"Salad thing?" said Mary.

"There was this Italian family that lived a few blocks down from our apartment building. The wife told me about picking dandelions and eating them as a salad or sauteing them as a side dish. It took a lot of effort to clean them but it was free food that almost nobody else wanted. A lot of the vegetables we ate came from a can. It was nice to eat something really fresh."

"It was good, but we didn't dare eat this in front of my family because they'd think we had gone nuts," said Bucky. 

"That's why I was really surprised to see them in a ten dollar salad at that restaurant Tony took us to . . ."

"We can say we ate this before it became fashionable."

Steve laughed. "It wasn't even a big salad but this tiny little dish . . ." He demonstrated its size by holding his thumbs and index fingers in a circle. 

Mary noticed that while Steve wasn't exactly depressed when he walked into the room, he had been slightly subdued. Now, he seemed more playful and his smile reached his eyes. She wondered what kind of reaction the next dish would bring. She lifted another lid of another pot and there was pan fried potatoes, onions and sliced hot dogs.

Bucky sniffed again and said, "This smells familiar. Did you use to make something like this?"

Steve nodded. "Every once in a while, we'd even manage to get some real sausages or some bacon for this. Meat was something you ate once a week, not every day."

Mary gave them each a small serving. 

"If we didn't have meat then sometimes I'd use a couple eggs," said Steve. "Thanks for cooking this for us."

"No problem," said Mary. "It's for research." She noticed the relish both men had for the dish. 

Mary took a covered dish and took off the cover to show an orange-red gelatin ring. Steve looked astonished and Bucky made a face. "Go ahead and touch it. It's a tomato aspic," she said, noticing Bucky had his right index finger hovering an inch away from it. He touched it gently and the ring made out of cold gelatin mixed with tomato juice jiggled. 

"My mom actually made something like this for some tea party thing with her friends. She saved me and Steve a slice each. It was terrible," Bucky said.

Steve chuckled. "It wasn't that bad."

Mary said, "I want you to sample it. I'll cut a very thin slice of it. I want your honest reaction." She used a knife to cut them each a slice and put it on their plates. "Here, you go." 

Bucky took one spoonful then put his spoon down. "I remember it as bad and it's still bad."

Steve finished his, however, and said, "It's not my favorite food but it's fine."

"I'm just glad I never came home after work to see this as my dinner."

"Can I have your slice?"

Bucky handed his plate to Steve as if it held toxic waste.

Steve huffed. "You're so fussy."

They are so like a married couple, she thought. However, one of her many skills was not saying her thoughts out loud. "So, do you eat any of these dishes nowadays?"

Bucky shook his head. "Usually, Tony's chef is in charge of the meals and she's really amazing. And we're usually so busy going on missions, training, unwinding and going to meetings . . . It's often easier to eat what's there or go out to eat or order takeout. I do go out of my way to get fresh fruit. I've been really enjoying going to the farmers' market and buying plums, peaches, figs . . . I didn't know you could combine plums and apricots to make pluots."

"Back then, when you thought of food in the future, what did you think we'd be eating by now."

Steve said, "I'd hope that there would be more of it, basically. Maybe I was hoping to be able to cook meals that were more than just grist for surviving. When I thought of the future, I thought more about flying cars and rocket ships. Or maybe they'd come with cures for a lot of the sicknesses back then. Hey, Bucky, you used to read a lot of science fiction books back then . . . What did you think would happen?"

Bucky thought for a bit before he said, "I heard some people say that someday all you'd have to do is take a pill."

"They actually did try to do something like that for the space program since they wanted food that kept people healthy, didn't weigh a lot and could be stored for a long time without going bad. They put food in squeezable tubes, made powers and cubes, and even experimented with liquid diets. It didn't work though. People's systems couldn't handle it or they'd get to the point that they'd start skipping meals. As I said before, people developing food kept focusing on other things than taste and texture until the people it was meant for began complaining," said Mary.

"They need to eat the crap they come up with," said Bucky. 

Steve elbowed him in the ribs. "Language."

"Sorry but it's true."

"Luckily, I don't plan on asking either of you to taste any space food," said Mary. "How about you send me some of your recipes? I am especially interested in the dandelion recipe."

"Sure," said Steve.

"Hey, maybe you could make a cookbook?" said Bucky. "It'd totally sell. Throw in some drawings and some beefcake pics. Maybe Mary could call up her agent."

"Now do you see why he's such a pain to take anywhere?" said Steve.

"Punk."

"Jerk."

They were all surprised when there was a loud ringing coming from Steve's pocket. "Sorry, I have this on as a way for them to reach us in an emergency," said Steve as he pulled his smartphone out and looked at it. "And it's an emergency. I'm sorry we both have to go."

"Please go and save us all from whatever or whoever is trying to take over this time around," said Mary. "I'll be sure to send you some follow-up questions via e-mail."

As the two men left, she thought, But what will I do with the chipped beef on toast?

The End

**Author's Note:**

> Here are some links to where I got my info:
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51VhG8MKxJY is one of a series of Great Depression cooking vids by someone who lived back then. She is making a dandelion dish in this one. She also makes the hot dog/potato/onion dish in another video.
> 
> http://www.foodtimeline.org/fooddecades.html#1930s is pretty thorough. 
> 
> As for the tomato aspic, http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/08/15/489991111/creamed-canned-and-frozen-how-the-great-depression-changed-u-s-diets and http://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/tasting-1930s-experiment-congealed-salads-and-other-one-dish-wonders Jellied stuff really was in fashion back then. I remember Hannibal once served a dish called kholodets which was this transparent jelly ring with fish inserted and most people's reaction was one of distaste. So it's often wondered if people's tastes were different back. 
> 
> I was thinking of a Bucky who's had a lot of treatment and is mostly functional. Also, smells can bring back memories in a way that other senses often don't. 
> 
> As for the food in space, there are these two links. https://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/apollo-to-the-moon/online/astronaut-life/food-in-space.cfm http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/reference/factsheets/food.html
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H0dy8fv33M is a nice video about bananas and their being under threat


End file.
